September 20th-26th 2015

2013 Weekly Events

There are several different events occurring throughout Sea Otter Awareness Week . Listed below are some of the different events taking place around the country. Please feel free to take advantage of these different activities and contact their host for more information. Click hereto see events that occurred during last year's Sea Otter Awareness Week.

Oregon Zoo

Alaska Museum of Science and Nature

The Oregon Zoo is proud to be supporting Sea Otter Awareness week September 22-28, 2013. Come visit the zoo's pair of sea otters, Eddie and Thelma, to learn more about the important role sea otters play as a keystone species. Join us daily at 2:30 p.m. for a sea otter feed and keeper talk, and learn more about sea otters through Oregon Zoo's social media sites all week. For more information, visit www.oregonzoo.org

Please join the Alaska Museum of Science and Nature for self-guided activities featuring sea otter pelts to touch, bones to analyze, examples of what is included in a sea otter's diet, building an ocean food chain and a craft project. Drop in during Sea Otter Awareness Week.

California Academy

of Sciences

Pacific Grove Museum

The California Academy of Sciences is home to the world’s largest collection of skulls, skeletons, and other preserved samples of the southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis). From September 21 – 29, 2013, stop by the Project Lab to see select specimens on display. Join “Chat with an Academy Scientist” on Sunday September 22nd at 2:00 pm for an interview with the Birds and Mammals Collection Manager to learn more about some of the research published using our southern sea otter collection. Throughout the week, sea otter-themed resources and games will be available in the Naturalist Center, home to a real, larger-than-you'd-expect sea otter specimen. On Saturday, September 28 at 2:00 pm, catch "Specimen Spotlight: Speedy Species," a program focusing on how sea otters and other marine mammals are able to swiftly swim, twist and turn through water. Finally, view sea otter skulls being prepared in the Project Lab and talk to biologists at a special sea otter table during the NightLife event on September 26 between 6:00-10:00 pm (for ages 21 and over).​

Science Saturday: Otters

September 28th, 2013

11:00am-3:00pm

Celebrate Sea Otter Awareness Week at the Museum! Find out if you’d rather have otter fur or blubber, see what it's like to eat like a sea otter, examine real otter fur, make a craft to take home, and more! Discover just how important otters are to Monterey Bay as you dive into their amazing world at September’s free family event!

Drop in anytime between 11:00am and 3:00 to participate in this FREE event!

Minnesota Zoo

Oceanario de

Lisboa

Oceanário de Lisboa is planning the following activities for Sea Otter Awareness Week:

· September 22nd and September 28th - Environmental education sessions at the pacific habitat with a marine educator that will be available to answer questions and provide information about sea otters and their biology, ecology and conservation.

· Daily posts in Oceanário Facebook page with curiosities about sea otters and their biology, ecology and conservation.

Help Minnesota Zoo celebrate Sea Otter Awareness Week from Sunday, September 22 through Saturday, September 28, 2013! Visit their resident sea otters Capers, Jasper and Rocky in the Russia’s Grizzly Coast exhibit and learn more about how these charismatic marine mammals play a vital role in the coastal ecosystem. Staff and volunteers will be on hand throughout the day to share fascinating stories about sea otters and answer questions about their resident sea otters.

Viewing of the documentary “Otter 501” at the Minnesota Zoo’s Our world speaker series on Tuesday Sept. 24 at 6:30 p.m.

http://www.mnzoo.org/education/lectureSeries.asp

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

Georgia

Aquarium

The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium will celebrate Sea Otter Awareness Week by having their Research Library offer an eye catching Sea Otter Resource Exhibit featuring a compilation of adult as well as children's suggested reading. Throughout the day, library staff will project "Blue Planet," which features the California Sea Otter. The Aquarium will also instruct visitors on how to complete a sea otter puppet arts and crafts project. They will be handing out sea otter fact sheets.

Staff in the Aquarium's Exploration Center will prominently display their sea otter skeleton which includes labels and explanations of the anatomy of a sea otter. In addition the Aquarium will have a permanent and extremely informative exhibit on the California Sea Otter in a section of their main exhibit hall titled "KELP - CALIFORNIA'S GOLDEN FOREST." The static display features a taxidermic sea otter in a display case. The sea otter is floating on kelp and the display features what a sea otter might eat in a typical day ie., crabs, sea urchin, mussels etc. There is also a side display of actual sea otter fur that visitors can touch along with an explanation of why a sea otter's fur is so dense.

Visit Georgia Aquarium and help them celebrate their Southern sea otters during Sea Otter Awareness Week! You’ll learn about sea otters and conservation all while having an Otterly Amazing time at the aquarium!

Guests will have an opportunity to learn sea otter facts while interacting with theirteam, challenge skills while participating in hands-on sea otter activities and enjoy storytelling sessions featuring Good Night, Little Sea Otter by Janet Halfmann.

The Marine Mammal Center

Shedd Aquarium

Shedd Aquarium celebrates Sea Otter Awareness Week, Sept. 22 to 28, with an inside look at how they provide enrichment for their five sea otters. Blogs and videos posted on their website and Facebook page will take the aquarium’s friends and fans behind the scenes for playtime, with a side trip to the otters’ “toy cave.” Think Santa’s storeroom, but with filled with waterproof, chew-proof toys. There will be more online fun with the high-energy sea otters, along with habitat chats for on-site guests, all adding up to the serious business of caring for these endangered marine mammals rescued from Alaska and California.

Join us for our Sea Otter Spectacular to kick off Sea Otter Awareness Week. This fun event features free interactive presentations on the amazing abilities of the threatened sea otter. We will highlight how despite their small size, sea otters have learned to survive in the waters off our California coast! Sessions are held in the Center's classroom at 12pm and 2pm. We will also offer docent-led tours of The Marine Mammal Center at 11 am, 1 pm and 3 pm, highlighting the seal and sea lion patients at our hospital and how are veterinarians are caring for them. For more details, visit our website at MarineMammalCenter.org.

Elkhorn Slough Foundation

Sea World

Event 1:

Surround yourself with the otters of Elkhorn Slough! Elkhorn Slough Foundation is kicking off Sea Otter Awareness Week with a kayak tour through the heart of the slough, on Sunday, September 22nd at 9 AM, co-led by Otter 501 star Katie Pofahl and Elkhorn Slough specialist Ron Eby. After touring the slough by water with our expert guides we’ll sit down to lunch at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve for a sea otter Q&A with Katie and Ron. After lunch we’ll enjoy a special screening of the film Otter 501, which was filmed right in our own Elkhorn Slough. A one-hour version of Otter 501 will show at 2PM and will be followed by a special presentation on the behaviors of Elkhorn Slough otters by Ron Eby. You must register for the kayak tour on the Elkhorn Slough Foundation calendar. Members of the Elkhorn Slough Foundation can enjoy the event (includes kayak rental, lunch, movie, and talk) for $60, $75 for non-members. Drop-ins are welcome at the movie and talk with a suggested $5 donation. All events begin at Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve at 1700 Elkhorn Road, Watsonville, CA, 95076. This event is best for adults and teens. Call (831) 728-5939 with questions.

Event 2:

Did you know that one of the best places to view wild Southern sea otters is at the mouth of Elkhorn Slough just off Highway 1 in Moss Landing? Visit Moss Landing State Beach on Jetty Road to watch otters groom, eat, rest, and play. Newly installed bi-lingual (English and Spanish) interpretive signs will teach you more about these amazing animals and their special home – a perfect activity for the whole family. No cost.

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SeaWorld San Diego is proud to participate in the celebration of Sea Otter Awareness Week, Sept. 22–28, 2013. SeaWorld activities will include daily sea otter "Tube Time" presentations, which will take place at the Otter Outlook. During "Tube Time," the otters play with frozen tubes stuffed with clams and shrimp. The otters hit the frozen "otter pops" against the wall of their habitat to dislodge the food, mimicking their natural behavior in the wild. Other festivities will include craft projects for kids and visits animal ambassadors and O.P. Otter, the costume character. SeaWorld and Busch Gardens support conservation projects all over the world, including sea otter preservation, through the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund (www.swbg-conservationfund.org).

New York Aquarium

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

Come and celebrate Sea Otter Awareness Week at the New York Aquarium. Learn about these amazing marine mammals, their incredible adaptations and their role in the food web of the kelp forests off California’s coasts. See the Aquarium's own resident sea otters, Tazo, Quint and Jacob and play a round of “Sea Otter Simon Says” with the Education Department Docents while investigating Sea Otter bio-facts

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, LA is excited to once again participate in this year’s Sea Otter Awareness Week. Sea Otter trainers will be giving two daily presentations and training sessions at 11:00 and 2:00 with the two Southern Sea Otters Buck and Emma. Trainers and Education staff will focus on the current threats to the Southern Sea Otter population, its current status, conservation efforts, and what we can do for this population and other threatened and endangered species.

There will be a display set up near the Sea Otter exhibit with information about Buck and Emma, and Sea Otter life history and conservation. Volunteers and Education staff will also have a number of Sea Otter artifacts including a Sea Otter pelt, skull replica, paw prints, among other things.

Also on Saturday, September 28th at 8:00, the Aquarium will be hosting a Sea Otter Breakfast in front of the Sea Otter exhibit, which will include a buffet breakfast, an interactive otter chat and feeding by trainers, fun crafts, and admission to the Aquarium following the breakfast.

Oregon Coast Aquarium

Morro Bay

National Estuary Program

Explore life as a southern sea otter and learn what challenges to survival these entertaining mammals face. Use the Center’s binoculars at the observation area to look for otters, sea lions, sea birds, and other wildlife in their native habitat. The Center, open daily from 10 am to 6 pm, also features interactive exhibits about the estuary and watershed. Admission is free. The Estuary Nature Center is located at 601 Embarcadero (upstairs at the Marina Square) in Morro Bay, California.

Join the Oregon Coast Aquarium as we celebrate sea otters during Sea Otter Awareness Week! The kickoff activities begin Sunday, Sept 22nd and include activity stations to learn about how otters stay warm, opportunities to touch pelts and bones, and more. Our mammologists will be on hand to share how we take care of our otters including daily feeding narrations and a presentation about managing our all male population at the Aquarium. For more information, please visit our website at www.aquarium.org.

The Aquarium will host two free after-hours presentations in the lobby on Friday, September 27 at 6:00 p.m.

The discussion will continue with, “Are Sea Otter Populations Safe At Last? Think Again!” a presentation by Nicole Duplaix, an OSU professor, photographer for the National Geographic Image Collections and founding member of TRAFFIC and the IUCN Otter Specialist Group.

The first 200 groups of visitors on Saturday, September 28, will drive away with a free sea otter themed bumper sticker.

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Friends of the Sea Otter

CuriOdyssey

Friends of the Sea Otter Annual Meeting

Friday, September 27 at 7pm

Monterey Bay Aquarium Auditorium

Make your plans now to join Friends of the Sea Otter, celebrating our 45th year, at our annual meeting. The meeting will feature a talk by world sea otter expert, Dr. Jim Estes and updates on sea otter issues in California and Alaska by Friends of the Sea Otter staff. Prior to the meeting at 6:00pm, there will be otter spotting opportunities behind the Aquarium auditorium along the coastal access railing (accessed through Hovden Way near the membership entrance).

In cooperation with National Sea Otter Awareness Week, CuriOdyssey will kick-off the week with Otter Awareness Day. Join us to learn about river otters and their relatives in the Mustelidae family, like the sea otter, ferret, and badger. Learn what you can do to promote otter conservation and explore the differences between sea and river otters.

Current schedule of programming:

12pm: Otter feeding with live fish
12:30pm: Watch otters as they play, slip and slide in an icy habitat

Throughout the day: Roving volunteers with Mustelideas throughout the day.

Alaska SeaLife Center

Aquarium of the Pacific

Stop by the I.Sea.U during your visit to the Alaska SeaLife Center and get acquainted with Agnes and Nuka! These two young otters were found abandoned during the summer months of 2013 – Agnes, near Homer, Alaska and Nuka, on Kodiak Island. Our knowledgeable interpretive staff will be happy to answer questions and share interesting facts about sea otters as you watch them in action. Also, in celebration of Sea Otter Awareness Week, the Alaska SeaLife Center will be dedicating its Facebook page to daily updates on sea otters! They will feature sea otters who have been through our stranding program, facts related to sea otters, their life history, and their status in Alaska.

The Aquarium of the Pacific will be highlighting sea otter awareness in daily presentations at the sea otter exhibit at the following times: 10:45 a.m., 2:15 p.m. & 4:00 p.m.

• view rescued sea otters in an exhibit modeled after their central California habitat,• play a game to learn about sea otter conservation,• and watch daily presentations to learn more about sea otters.

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

Seattle Aquarium

Sea Otter Awareness Weekends

When: September 21-22 and September 28-29
Where: Seattle Aquarium

Join biologists at the Seattle Aquarium and explore the lives of sea otters. See how the Seattle Aquarium biologists care for these enchanting animals, including providing great nutrition, training and even toys!

Schedule of activities:

· 10:30am Sea Otter Parachute Game—Puget Sound Hall

· 11:30am: Meet the Expert/Sea Otter Feeding—Sea Otter Exhibit

· 2pm: Sea Otter Diver Show—Sea Otter Exhibit

· 3pm: Ice Toy Demonstration—Marine Mammal exhibit area

· 3:30pm: Sea Otter Parachute Game—Puget Sound Hall

· 5pm: Sea Otter Feeding—Sea Otter Exhibit

Join Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in celebrating one of their favorite marine mammals during Sea Otter Awareness Day on Sunday, September 29th. During the event you can meet their always playful and entertaining sea otters, learn about their importance in the world’s ecosystem, touch sea otter fur, make a sea otter craft, and watch as they enjoy special enrichments throughout the day! Activities are free with zoo admission.

Vancouver Aquarium

Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium

Vancouver Aquarium will have daily sea otter feeds at 11:15, 1:30 and 4:30, 2 daily otter enrichment sessions, and will be offering their sea otter encounters on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 1:00and will have a volunteer out with a sea otter discovery cart for the week from 11-3.

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The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium welcomes guests to join us in supporting Sea Otter Awareness Week, Sunday, September 22 through Saturday, September 28. Stop by Sea Otter Cove all week to visit our resident northern sea otters, Alki and Meshik, in action. Special enrichment sessions and keeper talks will be taking place throughout the day on Saturday, September 28. Zoo staff and volunteers will be available to answer questions about sea otters and share information about Alki and Meshik. Come learn about this amazing species, the challenges they face, and current conservation efforts.

Océanopolis

Coming Soon

In their new exhibit on otters, Océanopolis has half of the exhibit dedicated to the Sea Otter (Ecology, biology, threats in the past and today). One of the screens is related to sea otter conservation actions.

There will be information on sea otters on the Océanopolis website and dedicated places throughout the Aquarium.

There will also be publicity during the week about a book, written by one of Océanopolis's staff, Sami Hassani, on otters with a focus on the Eurasian otter, the marine otter and the Sea otter. The book will be available in the Océanopolis bookshop.

On the 24th of September Océanopolis will be hosting a free public conference on otters given by the Head of the GMB (Groupe Mammalogique Breton) a local Non Governmental Organization leading conservation actions on the Eurasian otters. During this conference, there will be information on Sea Otter Awareness Week and connections made between the the two species, Eurasion otter and the Sea Otter.